Update: The script for Knights of Badassdom has been written and is being rewritten by Matt Wall and Kevin Dreyfuss. Also note the lack of hyphen in the title – that flourish of mine was just a little line out of line.

Breaking news from Film 4 Frightfest. During an on-stage Q&A with John Landis and many of the crew and some cast (read: Linzi Drew) of An American Werewolf in London, Landis dropped a couple nice little nuggets of horror news. He had apparently been offered a picture called The Knights of Bad-assdom (my hyphen) but turned it down and directed the producers instead to who he considered the right man for the job.

That man is Wrong Turn 2’s Joe Lynch, and according to Landis he’s the guy particularly because the film deals with video games and Lynch reportedly knows all about them. Not a great deal to go on, so after the Q&A wrapped, I scooted up to Lynch and asked for more info.

He told me that the project is casting now and should start shooting in October. Pushed for even more he described it as “a heavy metal adventure” and told me that he was taking care of the official rewrite of the script himself. Digging about and asking around, I also found out that its a film about LARPers who accidentally cast a real spell and bring a real demon into our world. I’m assuming Landis was correct and there’s some WoW in there too?

The Frightfest audience saw the Lynch and Landis link for the first time last night with the American Horror Directors in London skit, as discussed in my previous bulletin. Today it was brought to life all the more vividly as the two loudly exchanged foul mouth banter in the auditorium – heck, at the tops of their voices across the auditorium.

During the Q&A, Landis expressed his love for Blu-Ray and extolled the virtues of its crisp representation. A packed theatre had just been party to the world premiere of the digitally remastered American Werewolf, a vivid monument to Landis’ enthusiasm for digital video.

Such is Landis’ confidence in the new disc format, and awareness of how it has helped shape the home viewing experience, he announced that his next film will be the first film he shoots in cinemascope. I had to spark up a round of applause at that point, I’m afraid – to me, this was really exciting stuff. Hundreds agreeably joined in.

What wasn’t clear was just what this next film would be. He made no mention of the Burke and Hare film and from what could be heard of his conversations before the screening, that film is still not a 100% lock. I know, I was eavesdropping but seeing as I was only seated a few feet away, what else was I supposed to do?

Here’s hoping Burke and Hare comes through, though. If I can fairly collar him at all at any point (he’s explicitly asked for us all to leave him be over the weekend so he can just relax and watch some films – nice move) then I shall certainly be asking.